Blink

The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

In his landmark bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant-in the blink of an eye-that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work-in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing"-filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

Audio CD is a great way to appreciate this work, as it is a bit redundant. However, Gladwell provides interesting insight into human action and provides a wide range of examples to reach a wide audience.

I like Malcolm Gladwell's work in general but I had a hard time getting to the end of this book. I thought the material was kind of interesting, but did not warrant over 8 hours of audio. A lot of the anecdotes got into excruciating but irrelevant detail (e.g. the ages of the 4 cops in New York, who was sitting where in the car), and the narrative wasn't compelling enough for me.
The other annoying part of this book was also the very preachy and presumptive tone. There was a lot of assertions like "this is what you would do" where I'm reading and thinking, "No, I wouldn't do that".

As far as the core message of this books goes: The basic premise is that we all have the ability to make instantaneous, good, instinctive judgments. I have been a big intrinsic believer about being able to train your gut or your instincts to take good decisions, and a lot of more recent books (e.g Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath) seem to back up that concept. However in this book I didn't see any mentions of training your gut - a lot of it seemed to just be taken for granted. Also, the contexts where it works vs. fails and not explained well.

Like any book review, these views are my own and any reader is clearly welcome to disagree as well as form their own.

redban
May 14, 2015

I love non-fiction, yet never been so bored with a book like "Thinking Fast and Slow". Gladwell is a better writer, too made his content is fluff.

Never been impressed with pop science, pop sociology, and especially not pop economics!

While Malcolm Gladwell is not as atrocious as the moronic shills who brought us Freakanomics, I have read some major palm-to-the-forehead writings by Gladwell. Like a child brought up in front of cable TV with a curiosity but only within the realms of mainstream corporate/neoliberal propaganda, saturated with assumptions of how merit, incentives, and success works in the Western world.

What's sad is until you read elegant material that challenges this propaganda, you will be content to shovel this drivel down your throat. Try starting with Matt Taibbi, moving to Chris Hedges, then David Graeber, and finally Michael Perelman, Michael Hudson, and Nomi Prims. Some classics by Orwell, London, Kafka, Bradbury, and Huxley are helpful as well.

if you are looking for a scientific language and solid conclusions this is not the right book for you. For the exact same topic I would recommend reading "Thinking Fast and Slow" from D.Kahneman. I read "Blink" after I read Kahneman's book and it sounded very weak. Otherwise the book is okay, I don't regret I read it.